


Softly, Softly

by thelongcon (rainer76)



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-07
Updated: 2014-10-07
Packaged: 2018-02-20 06:18:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2418155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainer76/pseuds/thelongcon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A minor case of missing time</p>
            </blockquote>





	Softly, Softly

He wakes up with blood in his mouth, vision dim, head thrashing with pain and thinks  _ow_  then more eloquently,  _fuck_.  He’s three layers of caked dirt buried under a bad smell and the decomposing corpse lying between his legs - one arm flung over his hips, intimate as a lover - has him scrambling backward with a yelp.  There’s an arrow lodged through the crown of the head - piercing the under jaw and locking its mouth shut - it’s hair is wispy yellow, there are strands caught on the ends of his fingertips.  He rolls out from under the weight and scuttles backward on his butt without dignity, reaching for the familiar weight of the crossbow.  The rest of his internal conversation is spiked with adrenalin, punch-drunk agony - white noise and static - because what the actual fuck?

Behind him, the door crashes open.  He drops flat, prone on dirty concrete, crossbow raised off his chest and pointed above his own head.  He fires a bolt on reflex through the shattered door. “Whoa!” Someone shouts, and whoever knocked the door off its hinges throws himself backward violently.  “Wait, it’s me!”

That’s helpful, he thinks mulishly, it sorts everything out smart quick, clear as bloody mud.  “Yeah,” he rasps, “you who?”  There are bodies all around him, rejects from a Michael Jackson video clip, the smell of rancid flesh is ripe in the confines of the room.  The walls are splashed with gore.  It’s a massacre sight, ground zero, and he’s sprawled out in the epicentre. He rolls onto his stomach, yanking another bolt free and trying to reload the weapon with one eye fixed on the entryway.

“Are you kidding me?” The voice says, flatly, unamused.  The same man peers around the corner warily, a colt hanging by his side; blue eyes, curly hair, one hell of a lion’s mane on his ugly mug, he smells like cordite and shifts like a predator, name’s him like he’s someone cared for.  “Daryl?” he asks, hesitantly.  “You okay?”

That sounds right, it seems solid, the name echoing off the caverns and dark places in his mind, burrowing into the silent core of him.  Curly says the name with assuredness and Daryl? – Daryl, he decides, firmly – relaxes automatically.   He blinks, and grumbles around the bolt clenched between his teeth.  “Ye-ah?” 

Curly squints at him, eyes tracking over the interior of the shop.  “You aimed a bit low there, buddy.”

Daryl’s certain he’s never been a ‘buddy’ before in his entire life, and he knows a criticism when he hears one.  If curly’s reflexes were a hairsbreadth slower the bolt would have landed square in his gut.  “Instinct,” he deflects, because it’s the honest truth.  “Wasn't much warning before you came in.”

“You  _yelled.”_

Dead and stinky had her forehead on Daryl’s  _crotch_  when he woke up, he’s certain curly would have hollered his damn lungs out given the circumstances.  Or maybe not, Daryl revises, staring at the man as he holsters his weapon and slips through the broken door.  There’s something steely about his gaze, a thousand yard stare that cares not for the scattered corpses and is one hundred per cent focused on Daryl.  Which ought to be a concern – there should be a thousand church bells ringing in alarm – because bodies in such an advanced state of rot should  _not_  be above ground, except it doesn’t bother his companion, and whoever Daryl currently is, apparently he’s the type to lie down among the dead without batting an eyelid.  So…it appears he’s forgotten a few vital points here and there - mislaid a crucial detail or two - it’s not the first time it’s happened, Merle got him sick on moonshine when he was fourteen years old and Daryl couldn’t remember his own name for almost three days afterward. 

Short term memory comes crawling back eventually - always does - and his pop didn’t raise him to be a drama queen in the meantime. Daryl slides back onto his knees, sitting upright; he feels the lump on the back of his skull gingerly, the blood slippery between his fingers as he seeks out the bright spot of pain, and hisses at the contact.  He hazards shortly.  “Must have conked me head on the way down.”

“Graceful,” curly says, and glances at him.  There's concern in his gaze, the alarm ratcheting upward as he takes in the number of fallen dead.  “Jesus…"  Daryl’s not tracking properly – curly moves like a nightmare – one minute he’s framed in the doorway, the next, he’s kneeling beside Daryl amidst the gore.  His movement stutters so fast Daryl jerks in surprise, curly bats his hands away and cradles the back of his head, feeling for the wound.  “You bit?” he asks, urgently.  “Daryl, are you bit?”

“No,” he says, because reassurance seems the thing to do, except the man clenches his jaw, the salt and pepper beard inches from Daryl’s own face, and takes it as permission to skim his hands down Daryl’s body to check for himself. 

He’s had bad days at the local bar, swimming in cheap booze, his world gone nonlinear, a crazy carny ride of topsy-turvy faces. 

He’s had bad days at the end of his pop’s fist – thoughts rattling around in his mind, the trajectory of time scattered like a jar of marbles broken upon the ground - he knows how to wait these moments out, to not panic, to get loud when he needs to and observe if time permits, trying to scent out the undercurrent, not letting anyone be wiser to his own set of wonky cards.  He’s a born hunter, there’s a line of patience running through his winter bones; and if his memory is scattershot then Daryl knows how to trust muscle memory in its stead.  He doesn’t flinch from curly’s touch; from the heat or desperate _fear_ in his search.   Instinctively, Daryl tilts forward, body moving of its own volition, giving him access.  Broad palms and calloused fingers, the smell of sweat, male, and a gentleness that belies the urgency of his touch;  _Okay then_ , Daryl thinks,  _so we’re cool, you and I_.  There’s no threat here.

“You’re bleeding something awful,” curly declares.

“Head wound, they always look worse than they are.”

“And how bad is it, exactly?”

Can’t quite place your name or how I ended up here is likely to draw an unfavourable response, Daryl assumes, another headache he can live without.  Besides, he ain’t one for bleeding his personal woes on other folk, and things will sort themselves out, always have once the guidelines are established.  “Blurry around the edges,” he allows.  Distracted, he lets his gaze drift around the corpses in the room. 

The Michael Jackson rejects are all tagged with head kills, his bowie knife protruding from one, a dozen arrows here and there, what looks like a chair leg through the eye of another.    Pattern noted and observed, Daryl decides.  Aim for the head.  Judging by the panic in curly’s voice when he patted him down rule numero uno is simple: don’t get bit, no matter what.  Bearded guy leans forward, his voice low, pitching a glance out the window where the sky is darkening rapidly.  “Your vision’s blurry?” he clarifies, sounding worried.

“Hmm.”  Among other things.  Warily, Daryl kicks at a geek.  “Any more of these things lurking about?”

“Nah,” the man rocks back onto his heels, palm skittering down Daryl's torso as the space opens up between them.  “Michonne and I cleared the store of Walkers when I heard your shout, came running but I think you got the last of them.”  Michonne and Walkers, Daryl files away, all too easy, but he needs to find another moniker for his mystery companion because curly is getting old real fast.  “Tilt your head forward for me,” he instructs, fingers gentle on the matted hair.  “Might need stitches, Daryl, but I can’t see anything through this mess.”  His tone is warm, teasing.

Daryl grew up with buzz cuts, number twos, with his ears forever sticking out; the longer hair feels weird all of a sudden.  Merle would have given him all sorts of shit if he saw the length of it now.  The thought makes Daryl uneasy, his stomach clenching tight, biting his tongue to hold back the inquiry about his brother.  “Hack it off if you need to,” he says, abruptly. 

Curly freezes for a second, half hooked around his frame as he examines the wound, and Daryl thinks  _what, what did I say?_ “Okay,” the man agrees, quietly, he ducks his head slightly to catch Daryl's eyes.  He looks suspicious.  He looks like thirty miles of rough road, both sharp and brittle, far too observant for his own good.  Daryl likes him immediately.  He feels familiar, a reflection of who Daryl is, the type of people he was raised with, and he thinks easily,  _I know you, I know you well, you’re **my**  kind. _Never let it be said that he doesn’t have a type, and this man wears leadership the same way he wears the road, worn in and used, dusty, corroded at the edges, pitted with dark holes.

Most people don't look at Daryl like that.  So directly.

Daryl remembers how he kicked the door down; fell to his knees, how carefully he checked for wounds.  He remembers how he accepted the man’s physical presence in his personal space, when Daryl kept a scrupulous distance between himself and most folk bar family or fucks.  Curly's a predator in filthy clothing and he feels like family; but the warm curl of want in Daryl’s stomach spells out a different story.  Its easy to brush his cheek against the salt and pepper beard, they’re kissing close anyway, and most people who look at Daryl like that do it for a reason.  “Thanks.” 

Daryl’s searching for his cues, he sees it writ in the shudder that passes through the man's body, the dilation in pale blue eyes, the way his lips part.  Definitely not family, Daryl thinks smugly, and takes his evidence and runs with it because there’s only two types of people who typically get close to him and if he’s not kin then he’s…

The kiss is soft, a shy greeting. 

Curly breathes out, startled.  His fingers clench in Daryl’s hair, his teeth nip at Daryl’s bottom lip, he tugs him forward wantonly.  Slide of muscle and dirty skin, then, and only  _then_  things get serious, wet, full of intent.  He’s always been more instinct than reason; and this feels like flying this so slow friction, feels like throwing yourself head first off a cliff and into the unknown, screaming all the way down.   He’s _definitely_ Daryl’s kind.  They break off with a wet sound, obscene in the silence, and regard each other.  Seconds tick by.  

Curly pinches the bridge of his nose, voice rough like sandpaper.  “Daryl,” he says eventually, pained.  “What’s my name?”

So, the kiss might not have been the appropriate reaction then.

“Rick?” Michonne says, and pushes through the door carelessly.  “You two okay?”

Daryl shrugs, palms braced flat against the ground, as if to indicate  _what can I say_ , and licks his bottom lip for the last traces of Rick.  “What she said.”

Rick's eyes narrow.  “You don’t remember a thing, do you?”

By necessity, Daryl’s more observant when he’s operating with zero recollection, and he refuses to feel guilty.  He knows damn well Rick not only enjoyed the kiss but responded in kind.  History can muddy the waters some, but he has no trouble reading the tracks when they’re laid out before him.  “It’ll come back,” he says.

“It’ll come back?” Rick repeats, faintly.

“Or you could prod it along.”

In the doorway, Michonne snorts, and folds her arms across her chest.  ”Seems like a train wreck.”


End file.
